How an epic war between Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward 20 years ago changed the fighters’ lives and created one of boxing’s most iconic trilogies

On 18 May 2002, fading ex-champion Arturo ‘Thunder’ Gatti fought a 36-year-old with 11 pro losses, ‘Irish’ Micky Ward – and their ferocious 10-round war changed their lives and bonded them to one another forever.

An action-packed fight with an upset finish is often called a real-life ‘Rocky’ story. But Sylvester Stallone would’ve had to work overtime scripting Gatti vs Ward, because it featured two Rocky Balboa-style warriors and a bout with more blood, guts, pain and jaw-dropping moments than even Hollywood would allow. Years later, it all somehow ended with the pair as fighter-trainer.

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Gatti was the A-side going into their first bout. The handsome, heavy-handed, Italy-born, Canada-raised ‘Human Highlight Reel’ was a two-weight world champion who could actually box. Until that is he got hit on the chin, hurt, and his gameplan became eating flush punches and trying to knock the other guy’s block off. His track record of spectacular come-from-behind victories made him a fan-favourite superstar, win or lose.

Superstar was not a word to describe the shy Ward, a Massachusetts pressure fighter who paved roads to earn cash alongside his fighting career. He owned a solid chin, an endless supply of heart and a vicious left hook to the body but was basically a club fighter. Ward even took a three-year break from the sport after six losses in nine fights, sick of being on the wrong end of a few dubious decisions.

He turned his career around in the early 2000s, beating Shea Neary in London and ​​erratic Emanuel Augustus in two memorable battles. But Gatti, who had gone back to a boxing-first approach under coach Buddy McGirt, was the clear favourite going into their light-welterweight showdown at the Mohegan Sun Casino, Connecticut.

Gatti’s boxing style would be the first casualty of a brutal night. Ward was cut early, each man was hurt in the third round and – as the slugfest intensified – both exasperated corners would threaten to stop the fight at various points. However it was round nine where that year’s best fight transformed into one of the greatest ever.

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With both fighters cut over the right eye – emphasising their mirror-image qualities – Ward dropped his rival with the kind of body shot fighters don’t get up from after 15 seconds. Gatti, his face scrunched in pain, not only stood up and endured the savage follow-up assault, but eventually fired back. “You dream of fights like this but very seldom do they live up to the expectation,” cried trainer-turned-pundit Emanuel Steward on HBO. “This is even more than you could dream of!”

An electrifying three minutes ended with Ward once more teeing off on Gatti’s unguarded chin and commentator Jim Lampley beseeching the referee: “Stop it, Frank, you can stop it any time… Arturo Gatti is out on his feet!” Thankfully, Frank Cappuccino did not listen and Gatti somehow survived. The power-punch stats at the end of round nine: 60 landed by Ward, 42 landed by Gatti, and a total of zero clinches.

Ward won a narrow majority decision after 10 rounds, the knockdown and a point deduction for Gatti’s low blow in round four the difference. Both men ended up in the emergency room but still a rematch was desired by both awe-struck TV viewers and a live crowd who had paid for seats they didn’t use, standing on their feet throughout the fight.

"I used to wonder what would happen if I fought my twin. Now I know,” said Gatti, paying Ward the ultimate compliment after the second fight, which took place only six months after the first. The decision went Gatti’s way this time, a third-round knockdown and a ruptured eardrum for Ward hindering his chances of success but emphasising his unique durability.

Gatti could now have walked away having avenged his loss, but something more important was on the line. Ward had given him a rematch, so Gatti felt it was his duty to finish the trilogy. It would also help Ward, who’d made five-figure sums or less for most of the fights, walk away with another million-dollar payday. Overall, Ward would earn $3million for his trio of fights with Gatti – dwarfing the rest of his career purses.

If the second fight wasn’t quite as action-packed as the first, the rubber-match in 2003 made up for it. Another fight of the year contender, the two men hammered each other for 10 final rounds, Gatti surviving a broken hand to earn victory. Yet the friendship between the duo overshadowed the end result. They even ended up next to one another on their gurneys in hospital, hours after the fight finished, checking on each other’s health despite either man being the instrument for the other’s injuries and agony.

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A further twist was still to come. Ward, by then 37, wisely retired after the trilogy ended. The six years younger Gatti fought on and for his next fight wanted Ward as part of his entourage, arriving to the ring – as always to AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’ – with his fiercest rival by his side before he beat Gianluca Branco to claim a vacant 140lb world tite.

Gatti would make two defences but the wins were running out and, after a one-sided loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr in 2005, ‘Thunder’ had pretty much blown himself out.

However there was still one final twist as, after McGirt departed Gatti’s corner, Ward actually stepped in to train his old foe at the end of his career. A full-on Rocky and Apollo Creed turnaround. But while Gatti’s heartfelt friendship with Ward endured, the pair becoming good drinking buddies, the all-action hero struggled in retirement. Gatti’s tragic death, at the age of only 37 in 2009 in Brazil, came via mysterious circumstances never fully explained to the satisfaction of his friends and family.

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Ward was as devastated as anyone. He was at Gatti’s funeral and even landed one left hook – significantly gentler than the ones he’d thrown in the ring – at Gatti’s coffin. His way of saying goodbye to his greatest opponent after 30 rounds of exchanging punishment few would forget.

They would eventually make an Oscar-winning film about Micky’s life, ‘The Fighter’, starring Mark Wahlberg as Ward and focusing on his remarkable upbringing and boxing career before the Gatti trilogy. Those fights were left out, perhaps because they so perfectly tell the story of the two warriors and their shared courage on their own, without any need for embellishment.

“We could have been enemies after but we became best friends,” Ward reflected, years after Gatti’s death. “Out of trying to kill each other, we became one.”